Cooking soft-boiled eggs is usually a matter of careful timing and not too much heat. It can be hit-or-miss, so the folks at America’s Test Kitchen wanted a more repeatable method that worked every time. The secret? Way less water than you think—about a half-inch, tops.

The video above is a little long, but it explains the process. Because the beauty of a soft boiled egg is a firm white but a soft yolk, you have to take care with temperature. The whites of an egg set at 180 degrees F (82 degrees C) while the yolk will cook through if it gets past 158 degrees F (70 degrees C). It seems like a catch 22, but the fix is to instead use only a half-inch of boiling water (which will re-boil quickly as you add cold eggs to it) in a covered pan, and let most of the egg rest in the steam coming off of that water, which is around 212 degrees F (100 degrees C). This lets the eggs cook really quickly without giving the yolk time to set up.

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You’ll want to use cold, large eggs—and the recipe will work for two, six, however many eggs you want to cook. Six and a half minutes in the half-inch of water, and that’s all there is to it. Hit the video above to see the whole system work, and hear a more scientific description of how the process works.